Christian Bale : Career Capitalist

Let’s review. This is Christian Bale as Walter Wade Jr. in Shaft. Wade was an overly priveldged yuppie with a disdain for human life that was lower than him. He ran into trouble with the police.

T his is Christian Bale playing serial killer Patrick Bateman. Bateman was a rich investment banker / serial killer with a disdain for human life in general.

Now, this is Christian Bale playing Bruce Wayne.

See the difference? If you do, you are a lot better than I am. I believe that at some point and time in the 1990’s Christian Bale created a character something down the lines of “Violent capitalistic yuppie disguted with human existence. Name? Who cares? So far we have called that person Walter Wade Jr, Patrick Bateman, and Bruce Wayne. It is not just that it is Bale playing in all three movies. Bale is not managing to change mannerisms, tones of speech, or even general attitude. As a matter of fact, he is simply perfecting this exact same character over the course of Shaft, American Psycho, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Bale was once called by Entertainment Weekly one of the most creative people alive. Really? Want to take a look at Bale’s alternate character?

Lets just call this one “Scruffy Savior…”

Bale as Jesus.

Terminator’s John Conner.

John Rolfe.

And that scruffy dude from Reign of Fire..

Batman Begins would actually be the greatest culmination of Bale’s carefully crafter talents. In Begins, Bale was able to unite “violent yuppie’ and ‘scruffy savior’ in the same movie.